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his is just my opinion. Everything that follows below is my own speculation based on my inferences from the publicly available facts and from Musk's own statements in interviews. I write as a big fan of Musk and having read a great deal about him and watched many interviews. I do not find it plausible that Musk's decision to leave Stanford in order to start Zip2 was the result of a spontaneous epiphany that occurred to him a mere 48 hours after setting foot on the Stanford campus. It would seem to me far more plausible that he was planning to ditch the Stanford PhD as he was filling out the application, a year before (as he was coming to the end of his bachelor's degrees at University of Pennsylvania). If you know Musk's background, you can see why this is more plausible, and taking a look at Musk aged 13-23 helps to put this in context: Musk has said that already as a kid in South Africa he knew he wanted to end up in the US by early adulthood, because that's where all the interesting and innovative technology seemed to be happening, and he already had a sense as a kid that that's what he wanted to be a part of. He has also said that he originally wanted to get a US passport through his mother (her father was American), but because she had been born in Canada, the link was broken. Therefore, the best Musk could do would be to get a Canadian passport, go to a good Canadian university, and use that as a strategic stepping stone into the US. In this respect, he demonstrated already at 17 the sort of pragmatic resourcefulness and opportunistic thinking (not in a bad sense, just in the literal sense of strategic 'means-to-an-end' planning) that is the hallmark of most great entrepreneurs (and every self-made billionaire): getting the paperwork for Canadian passports from the embassy, getting his mother to fill it out (thus making his mom a Canadian citizen), and then -- on that basis of maternal citizenship -- submitting his own passport application; and then''submitting an application to a Canadian university ''as a Canadian citizen. I believe that 17-year-old Musk absolutely'' knew'', as he was applying for a Canadian passport and at the same time to a Canadian university (Queen's), that the whole point of this was that it represented the practically quickest route, albeit indirect, of getting into the US. (Far, far easier to do this from Canada than from South Africa, which was still under apartheid and therefore boycotted/blacklisted by the US and most countries at that time). Just two years after getting his Canadian passport and studying in Canada, he had transferred over to a US university (University of Pennsylvania). After getting his BA in physics from UPenn, he then buys even more time in the US (one more year) by stacking on another bachelor's degree, this time in economics. So he is coming to the end of his time at UPenn (which he's already extended by a year), and realizes that he needs some pretext for (a) relocating to California and so having access to the people, capital, partners and resources needed to achieve his goals in technology; and for (b) hanging out in the US for at least another year or so. The benefit of a Stanford acceptance letter is that it gave him that pretext for moving to and sticking around in California for at least a year or so until his company would start taking off and he could get the connections and credibility in place to support his case towards US citizenship. Musk said in an interview that he went to his Stanford supervisor shortly after arriving and said (paraphrasing): "Actually, I'd like to start a company, but I'd like to know that I could come back to Stanford in case it doesn't work out." This suggests that Musk also had the savvy to keep the Stanford pretext an open-ended and valid one for at least a year into his California arrival. Summary answer to your question: Musk, 'in my opinion', left Stanford after just two days because that was the plan all along. The whole point of getting a Stanford acceptance letter-- and then deferring it on his second day-- was to buy him more time in the US and give him a pretext for starting his career in Silicon Valley. Any person who has ever made a billion dollars is a pragmatic opportunist (a "schemer," for lack of a euphemism), and makes calculated life moves like this all the time. This is not inconsistent with being a good person, having a vast imagination, or creating great value for others. It is simply a personality trait which is evident in most entrepreneurs, and plain to see in anyone who has ever managed to go from zero to a billion. Why would Musk be any exception to this? He isn't. He is more successful than most entrepreneurs because he combines that same pragmatism/resourcefulness/opportunism with extremely high intelligence and exceptional memory applied to wide reading and disciplined study; highly advanced aptitude and knowledge in some of the most profitable skill-sets today (computer programming/science/tech); a fanatical work ethic; emotional resilience in the face of setbacks and challenges; and a genuine desire to advance the human species through some truly game-changing and breakthrough initiatives. My interpretation of his story, as written above, seems to me far more plausible than the idea of his having a genuinely spontaneous epiphany on his second day at Stanford. Seen in the light of his background and statements from various interviews, it's actually the only thing that makes sense. The more interesting question, I think, is how did Elon's brother, Kimbal Musk -- who also had only just got his hands on a Canadian passport through the same method as his brother -- manage to come into the US and hang out with his brother for all those years to help him launch Zip2? Kimbal didn't have a US university acceptance letter; he didn't have that same 'residency backdoor' avaliable to him. It seems unlikely that Elon-- as a 24-year-old Canadian just starting his first (then-)dinky company, and who himself was in the US on tenuous temporary grounds -- would have the clout at that point to get his brother a H-1B visa to work at his company.